


The Return

by lafiametta



Series: Wasteland [2]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 09:03:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5369546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lafiametta/pseuds/lafiametta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Upon his return to the Citadel, Max reflects on the night he has just spent with with Furiosa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Return

**Author's Note:**

> This is a follow-up to my other post-movie piece, The Redeemer, and is written from Max's perspective (much harder to write than Furiosa's, what with the hallucinations and all)... I have plans to write more, but I thought at this point, I would publish what I have. Enjoy!

**_where are you max where are you the abyss gazes through me dark and fathomless I stare back as a blind man who has lost his path broad is the road that leads to destruction narrow is the road that leads to life they are my companions in this howling wasteland hunger and thirst my guide their voices cry out in the wilderness cry out like birds circling around a carcass where are you who are you there is no escape I am a prisoner in my own skull help us save us we are lost we are lost we are lost we are_ **

He awakes suddenly in pale light, his body covered in a sheen of sweat. At first, does not know where he is, and his eyes writhe about, searching out anything familiar. He finds nothing.

He takes a moment to come back to himself, to reunite all the fractured pieces of his consciousness that the dream had obliterated. His heart still beats like gunfire within his chest.

Shifting onto his back, he looks left, catching a gleaming outline of curve and skin. He thinks of desert dunes, the color of sunlight. She is sitting on the edge of the bed, her bare back to him, still and quiet, her only movement the tiny expansion and contraction of her ribs. He stays motionless, not wanting to disturb her. Her hair is growing out a little, he observes, soft dark whorls tracing down towards the column of her neck. The brand, its raised outline pink and puckering along the edges, still sits below. There are some things you can’t outrun.

After a moment, she turns her head over her shoulder and looks down at him. Her eyes are curious, cautious.

“Good morning,” she says, in that guarded way he remembers.

He nods and murmurs something he hopes resembles a reasonable response. His brain is still so crowded and chaotic; the thought of squeezing a string of words out of it is overwhelming.

“I can go if you’d like to sleep longer,” she offers.

He shakes his head. Sleep only arrives when he is completely exhausted, when the accusatory voices finally retreat into silence.

She slaps her right palm onto her thigh and rises to her feet, but stops for a moment to raise her arms upward, pressing the stub of her left arm against the forearm of the other. She stretches fully, her back curving inward and her heels coming up off the ground, and he watches the round muscles of her calves grow taut. She begins to search for her clothing and while she is occupied, he sits up and swivels his legs over the side of the bed, hastily throwing a blanket over his lap.

He knows she has seen him entirely exposed, and she herself seems enough at ease in her own body, at least at this moment. But he is unaccustomed to such openness; in the Wasteland, everything is covered, protected, guarded by layer upon layer. He remembers seeing the wives for the first time, the thin scraps of fabric that they wrapped around themselves, their skin so smooth and shockingly vulnerable. For a moment, he had actually thought he was dead, that they were a disquieting vision of the afterlife.

“I tend to share my morning meals with the sisters,” she says, zipping her trousers.

“The… sisters?” he asks. His voice is thick in his mouth, corroded from disuse.

“The wives. Technically, widows now.” Does he see a tiny smile grace her mouth as she reaches down for her shirt? “But they prefer to be called sisters.” She pulls the shirt over her head, and as she turns to face him, he is struck by how much she resembles the image of her he kept in his mind as he wandered in the desert. “Would you like to join us? I know they would be excited to see you.”

He nods, although he doesn’t really believe her. They barely knew him and no doubt what they saw of him had been frightening. He had thought of them, though: their alien beauty and hope for a better world. On wind-whipped, sleepless nights, he had thought of Angharad and her child, her war cry – _“Then who killed the world?”_ – and her body as it fell below the wheels

**_we are so lost max where are you max who are you max whereareyouwhereareyouwhere_**

_stop_

_leave me_

_leave me be_

He blinks rapidly while the visions recede, and she is looking at him, her head tilted, but she says nothing.

After a moment, she exhales roughly, glacing around the room. “It’s early yet,” she says. “Would you like a bath?” Now she does smile, a loose curl set into the side of her mouth. “You’ve been out there a long time.”

How strange is it that he only now remembers all the water? So much water, cascading, pouring out from the side of the Citadel onto the rocks below. He finds himself unconsciously licking his lips. But to sit in? Bathe in? The sheer luxury of the idea is overpowering.

“That sounds… good,” he replies.

After finding his own trousers, he follows her out of the room and down a narrow hallway, the earthen walls angling in on him in an increasingly uncomfortable way. He is beginning to feel that cramped, tight pressure as it pushes upwards from his chest and into his throat, but then she stops in front of a battered metal door and opens it wide for him.

“I’ll come back in a while,” she says matter-of-factly, and then turns back down the hallway.

Inside, he finds a recessed pool, lined with white tile, big enough to accomondate half a dozen people. He realizes he does not want to think about who built this and how it might have been used. He only wants to be in the water, to rest his world-weary body.

He shucks his trousers and steps in. The water is deliciously warm, lapping against him as he immerses himself fully, and he feels its welcoming embrace, his limbs light and buoyant. He dunks his head in and then runs his fingers through his wet hair, filled with an sudden and unexplained desire to rid himself the dust and grime of the road, the sweat of sun-baked days. Nearby, there is a shelf with bars of soap and he takes one, using the rich, rain-scented lather to coat his skin and hair.

It is only as he is rinsing himself off that he wonders if this is Furiosa’s bath.

For a moment, he considers the previous day, and what had passed between them. If he had been surprised by his immediate reception – two of the Many Mothers pulling him aside and asking if he wished to provide seed to the new commander of the Citadel – he had tried not to show it. She had claimed him, in this primal way, and he had acquiesced. He had his own reasons for agreeing, of course, the most central of which he had already given her as they lay together in the darkness, the words barely escaping from the foggy pandemonium of his brain.

In the desert, he had forgotten so much. He had forgotten the sounds a woman makes. He had forgotten that hands and mouths are each possessed of their own greedy desires. He had forgotten the soft and overpowering exhaustion that follows release.

He feels a stirring below his waist and looks down through the water to see his growing hardness. _Interesting_.

There is a ledge built into the pool, lying beneath the water, and he sits down, draping his arms along the edge, tilting his head back so he can rest it against the cool tiled surface. His eyes begin to drift closed, clearly succumbing to the same level of relaxation as the rest of him.

There had not been much time to formulate any expectations. But it had been a surprise, seeing her hesitation, watching it battle against her clear need for control. There were even moments when he sensed some small part of fear, written into the distant depths of her eyes. And yet at times she was startlingly direct, and he recalls her face alight with the high gloss of desire. He had traced her skin, warm and pliable under his hands, felt the underlying strength of her body. 

His eyes blink open with the realization that the visions had quieted the entire time they had been together.

Near the soap, he finds a pile of linen cloths and uses one to dry himself off, quickly throwing on his road-mucked trousers that he now wishes were as clean as he is. He peeks outside the door, looking down the hallway, wondering if she has returned, but all he finds is a pile of clothes folded neatly, not just his shirt and jacket, but his boots, his holster, his leg brace. He is tightening the last buckle on the brace when he hears her. She doesn’t knock, but opens the door slowly enough to give him warning.

She is now fully dressed, bound up in linen and leather, her mechanical arm attached to her body, strength and authority written so indelibly into her stance that he finds it hard not to compare her to the woman who trembled in his arms.

“Come on, then,” she says, both as a command and a request.


End file.
